and the law of self-preservation. We trust the time may not be distant, when the chivalry of the south may imitate Alexander of Russia, and nobly set their vassals free. The work must be gradual and may stretch over many years, but we look forward to the day when this foul stain upon the honor of our republic shall be wiped away. With the noble and high-minded statesmen and patriots of the south we leave this Christian duty. France, England and America, and even the great repub. lic of humanity, have at last condemned slavery and the slave trade, and they must cease.

Our sketch will convey a general idea of the frame of our complex government, and this is all we have thus far aimed at. We have not proposed to specify all the powers given to govermental agents, or to point out all the limitations of authority. These are preliminary investigations to a discussion of the power and duty of the government of the Union in its leading internal relations to the states and to the People of the United States. The rights and duties of the Union grow out of the jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution.

Our brief suggestions on this subject are founded upon what we deem abiding and obvious principles of policy, and they are not intended to touch upon any question of party disputation.

SECTION THIRD. INVASION AND INSURRECTION.

The first great duty of the government of our Union is to preserve in each state a republican form of government, and to that end to employ the military power of the United States to suppress domestic insurrection or foreign invasion.

When foreign invasion of a state occurs, there need be little difference of opinion as to the duty of the President of the United States. For when any state is invaded, or imminently threatened with invasion from abroad, it is the duty of every governor of every state to obey the call of the President to arms. Though a case has occurred of an omission by the governor of a state to obey such order, on the ground that the militia were demanded in a case not contemplated by the Constitution, such omission will not be likely again to occur, as the true construction of the Constitution as now settled renders the President the sole judge of the necessity of the call for the militia.

Questions of delicacy have arisen under the oth. er branch of this subject. When an armed resistance of any law of the United States happens, the power and duty of the President to suppress it by the military arm is clear. But in the State of Rhode Island an anomalous case has arisen. The state, having continued to live under a Royal Charter as

modified by the laws of the State and the Constitution of the United States, has lately presented the Union with the singular spectacle of two state governments both claiming to represent the state.

A portion of the people of this state had applied to the Legislature for a convention, and not having obtained their request in the form desired, thought they might follow the precedents of our revolutionary fathers and by public meetings start a new republican government ab initio in primary assemblies of the people. In this mode delegates to a convention were deputed, being elected in a mode agreed on. The convention adopted a State Constitution and submitted it to the people of the State in a mode prescribed by it. It was voted for as its friends allege by a majority of the electors of the State. Under this alleged Constitution a governor and legislature was elected. The State Legislature declared these proceedings in contempt of its authority null and void, and made the attempt by any person to enforce such new government by force treason against the State. A rising with arms by the new authorities against the old was suppressed by the old State government without any serious bloodshed. The President of the United States was called upon by both parties, and he decided that the old government which had continued for more than fifty years

was the republican government of the State, and that, if necessary, he should sustain it. This was a correct decision for this reason. At the revolution the proceedings of our forefathers arose from the necessity of the occasion. The colonial governments were suddenly put down by force in Rhode Island as well as in her sister colonies. All of them except Rhode Island adopted constitutions much after the mode lately attempted there.

Rhode Island was satisfied to remodel her charter by acts of her Legislature elected by the people, and in that form she entered the Union as a republican state. That then was her settled republican form of government, and she has lived under it about half a century. It followed of necessity that the provision of the Constitution of the United States enjoining it on the President to sustain the republican government of the States applied to the existing modified Charter Government.

The friends of the new Constitution mistook the mode of altering an established government of a state. The law organizing a convention of the people to change or alter a state government must be passed by the Legislature of a state. And such has been the uniform practice.

Inequality of representation or denial of the right of suffrage, where it ought to be granted, is

no ground for a revolutionary movement in a republic where the public voice may speak through the ballot box. The same difficulty exists in Virginia as to inequality of representation that is complained of in Rhode Island. These are proper subjects to present to the legislatures of the states and the people with a view to a legal reform by legislative action. Representative republican government rests on the popular voice expressed through the ballot boxes. The sword, the weapon of despots, finds no place in our republic.

As the decision of President Tyler is sustained by public opinion, the power and duty of the Executive of the Union to maintain the existing republican state governments against all attempts to change them by force, may be considered as established.

The next duty of the government of the Union, founded upon the entire resources of the country, is that of maintaining the pecuniary credit of the republic and of the states.

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